The lost month

What happened to April?

"If you're hitting a wall, you're not alone."
Excerpts from an opinion piece by Jill Filipovic, CNN 
April 29, 2020

"A longing to hug a friend, a loved one, a far-away child, your mom is more than just "I want a hug" -- it's a primal and fundamental longing for the way touch is so often short-hand for everything we don't find the words to say."

"No, we are not being asked to go to war or survive one. But what we are being asked to do is profoundly antithetical to our natures as human beings; it is profoundly destabilizing and difficult. There is little more human than the desire for connection, touch, stimulation and novelty. This is all so hard because in going without those things, it's not hyperbole to say we have to find new ways of being -- or at least feeling -- human."

"Compared to illness and death, these are small things. Being alive matters more, and so of course we have to continue to live this way for as long as is necessary to keep ourselves and others safe and healthy."

"But it's also OK to grieve the pieces of life that we're missing, to express the feeling so many of us have that we can't take it anymore. It's necessary to understand that missing the fullness of life, including pleasure and connection, doesn't make us selfish. Feeling destabilized and disoriented or pushed to a breaking point doesn't make us flaky or weak. It makes us human."